A new academic study based on the Canadian census suggests that a married mom and dad matter for children. Children of same-sex coupled households do not fare as well.

There is a new and significant piece of evidence in the social science debate about gay parenting and the unique contributions that mothers and fathers make to their children’s flourishing. A study published last week in the journal Review of the Economics of the Household—analyzing data from a very large, population-based sample—reveals that the children of gay and lesbian couples are only about 65 percent as likely to have graduated from high school as the children of married, opposite-sex couples. And gender matters, too: girls are more apt to struggle than boys, with daughters of gay parents displaying dramatically low graduation rates.

Unlike US-based studies, this one evaluates a 20 percent sample of the Canadian census, where same-sex couples have had access to all taxation and government benefits since 1997 and to marriage since 2005.

While in the US Census same-sex households have to be guessed at based on the gender and number of self-reported heads-of-household, young adults in the Canadian census were asked, “Are you the child of a male or female same-sex married or common law couple?” While study author and economist Douglas Allen noted that very many children in Canada who live with a gay or lesbian parent are actually living with a single mother—a finding consonant with that detected in the 2012 New Family Structures Study—he was able to isolate and analyze hundreds of children living with a gay or lesbian couple (either married or in a “common law” relationship akin to cohabitation).

So the study is able to compare—side by side—the young-adult children of same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples, as well as children growing up in single-parent homes and other types of households. Three key findings stood out to Allen:

children of married opposite-sex families have a high graduation rate compared to the others; children of lesbian families have a very low graduation rate compared to the others; and the other four types [common law, gay, single mother, single father] are similar to each other and lie in between the married/lesbian extremes.

Employing regression models and series of control variables, Allen concludes that the substandard performance cannot be attributed to lower school attendance or the more modest education of gay or lesbian parents. Indeed, same-sex parents were characterized by higher levels of education, and their children were more likely to be enrolled in school than even those of married, opposite-sex couples. And yet their children are notably more likely to lag in finishing their own schooling.

[…]The truly unique aspect of Allen’s study, however, may be its ability to distinguish gender-specific effects of same-sex households on children. He writes:

the particular gender mix of a same-sex household has a dramatic difference in the association with child graduation. Consider the case of girls. . . . Regardless of the controls and whether or not girls are currently living in a gay or lesbian household, the odds of graduating from high school are considerably lower than any other household type. Indeed, girls living in gay households are only 15 percent as likely to graduate compared to girls from opposite sex married homes.

Thus although the children of same-sex couples fare worse overall, the disparity is unequally shared, but is instead based on the combination of the gender of child and gender of parents. Boys fare better—that is, they’re more likely to have finished high school—in gay households than in lesbian households. For girls, the opposite is true. Thus the study undermines not only claims about “no differences” but also assertions that moms and dads are interchangeable. They’re not.

Almost all studies of same-sex parenting have concluded there is “no difference” in a range of outcome measures for children who live in a household with same-sex parents compared to children living with married opposite-sex parents. Recently, some work based on the US census has suggested otherwise, but those studies have considerable drawbacks. Here, a 20% sample of the 2006 Canada census is used to identify self-reported children living with same-sex parents, and to examine the association of household type with children’s high school graduation rates. This large random sample allows for control of parental marital status, distinguishes between gay and lesbian families, and is large enough to evaluate differences in gender between parents and children. Children living with gay and lesbian families in 2006 were about 65 % as likely to graduate compared to children living in opposite sex marriage families. Daughters of same-sex parents do considerably worse than sons.

The author of the study is a professor of economics at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. His PhD in economics is from the University of Washington. A previous study had shown that gay relationships typically have far more instability (they last for more shorter times). That’s not good for children either. Another study featured in the Atlantic talked about how gay relationships have much higher rates of domestic violence. That’s not good for children either. So we have three reasons to think that normalizing gay relationships as “marriage” would not be good for children.

The reason I am posting this is because I want people to understand why social conservatives like me propose these laws defining and promoting marriage. We do favor natural marriage for the same reason that we oppose no-fault divorce, and for the same reason why we oppose welfare for single mothers (it encourages single motherhood). We don’t want to encourage people to deprive children of their mother or their father. We look at the research, and we decide that children need their mother and father. Given the choice between the needs of the child and restraining the freedom of the adults, we prefer the child’s need for her mother and father. It’s not just arbitrary rules, there is a reason behind the rules.

But children are not commodities. They have certain needs right out of the box. Adults should NOT be thinking about how to duct-tape a child onto any old relationship that doesn’t offer the same safety and stability that opposite sex marriage offers. We should be passing laws to strengthen marriage in order to protect children, not to weaken it. Libertarians don’t want to do that, because they want adults to be free to do as they please, at the expense of children. Libertarians think that the adults should be able to negotiate private contracts and have no obligations to any children who are present, or who may be present later.

Here are three articles by Jennifer Roback Morse posted at The Public Discourse. The articles answer the charge from social liberals and libertarians that government should “get the government out of marriage”.

Here’s the first article which talks about how government will still be involved in marriage, evenif we get rid of the traditional definition of marriage, because of the need for dispute resolution in private marriage contracts. She uses no-fault divorce as an example showing how it was sold as a way to get government out of the divorce business. But by making divorce easier by making it require no reason, it increased the number of disputes and the need for more government intervention to resolve these disputes.

Here’s the second article which talks about how the government will have to expand to resolve conflicts over decisions about who counts as a parent and who gets parental rights. With traditional marriage, identifying who the parents are is easy. But with private marriage contracts where the parties are not the biological parents, there is a need for the state to step in and assign parental rights. Again, this will require an expansion of government to resolve the disputes.

Here’s the third article which talks about how marriage is necessary in order to defend the needs and rights of the child at a time when they cannot enter into contracts and be parties to legal disputes.

The third article was my favorite, so here is an excerpt from it:

The fact of childhood dependence raises a whole series of questions. How do we get from a position of helpless dependence and complete self-centeredness, to a position of independence and respect for others? Are our views of the child somehow related to the foundations of a free society? And, to ask a question that may sound like heresy to libertarian ears: Do the needs of children place legitimate demands and limitations on the behavior of adults?

I came to the conclusion that a free society needs adults who can control themselves, and who have consciences. A free society needs people who can use their freedom, without bothering other people too much. We need to respect the rights of others, keep our promises, and restrain ourselves from taking advantage of others.

We learn to do these things inside the family, by being in a relationship with our parents. We can see this by looking at attachment- disordered children and failure-to-thrive children from orphanages and foster care. These children have their material needs met, for food, clothing, and medical care. But they are not held, or loved, or looked at. They simply do not develop properly, without mothers and fathers taking personal care of them. Some of them never develop consciences. But a child without a conscience becomes a real problem: this is exactly the type of child who does whatever he can get away with. A free society can’t handle very many people like that, and still function.

In other words I asked, “Do the needs of society place constraints on how we treat children?” But even this analysis still views the child from society’s perspective. It is about time we look at it from the child’s point of view, and ask a different kind of question. What is owed to the child?

Children are entitled to a relationship with both of their parents. They are entitled to know who they are and where they came from. Therefore children have a legitimate interest in the stability of their parents’ union, since that is ordinarily how kids have relationships with both parents. If Mom and Dad are quarreling, or if they live on opposite sides of the country, the child’s connection with one or both of them is seriously impaired.

But children cannot defend their rights themselves. Nor is it adequate to intervene after the fact, after harm already has been done. Children’s relational and identity rights must be protected proactively.

Marriage is society’s institutional structure for protecting these legitimate rights and interests of children.

I recommend taking a look at all three articles and becoming familiar with the arguments in case you have to explain why marriage matters and why we should not change it. I think it is important to read these articles and to be clear that to be a libertarian doctrine does not protect the right of a child to have a relationship with both his or her parents. Nor does libertarianism promote the idea that parents ought to stick together for their children. Libertarianism means that adults get to do what they want, and no one speaks for the kids.

The purpose of marriage is to make adults make careful commitments, and restrain their desires and feelings, so that children will have a stable environment with their biological parents nearby. We do make exceptions, but we should not celebrate exceptions and we should not subsidize exceptions. It’s not fair to children to have to grow up without a mother or father just so that adults can pursue fun and thrills.

The abortion debate reared its head again this summer after controversial tweets by Richard Dawkins made the news.

Justin hosts a discussion between Mara Clarke of the Abortion Support Network and Scott Klusendorf of the Life Training Instititute. Mara believes women need to be decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, but Scott says that all depends on whether we are dealing with a human life in the womb.

Mara: I refuse to debate that – the real question is whether women want their babies or not

Mara: Forced pregnancy is not OK

Brierley: Could your justification for abortion (not wanting to care for a child) work through all 9 months?

Mara: Late term abortions are rare, so I don’t have to answer that question

Mara: Abortion should be OK through all 9 months of pregnancy because women cannot be restricted

Mara: Some women are poor, they need to be able to kill expensive babies at any time

Klusendorf: although she says she won’t debate the unborn, she does take a position

Klusendorf: she assumes the unborn is not human, because she says that insufficient funds is justification for abortion

Klusendorf: no one argues that you can kill a two year old because they cost money, because she thinks they are human

Klusendorf: she is begging the question by assuming the unborn are not human, but that is the issue we must resolve

Klusendorf: I am pro-choice on many other things, e.g. women choosing their own husbands, religion, etc.

Klusendorf: Some choices are wrong – Mara might be right, but she needs to make the case for the unborn not being human

Brierley: What is your reason for thinking that an unborn child is different from a 2-year old?

Mara: An unborn child is not the same as a 2-year old, in my personal opinion

Mara: I am not a debater, so I don’t have to provide reasoning for my assertion, I just feel it

Mara: Not everybody agrees with Scott, they don’t have to have a rational argument, they just need to feel differently

Mara: From my experience, when a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, then she should be able to not be pregnant

Mara: Women shouldn’t be punished with a baby that she doesn’t want, even if she chooses to have recreational sex

Brierley: What do you think of women who think the unborn is human and do it anyway?

Klusendorf: It’s interesting that they never kill their toddlers for those reasons

Klusendorf: I layed out scientific and philosophical reasons for the humanity of the unborn

Klusendorf: Her response was “but some people disagree with you”

Klusendorf: People disagreed about whether slavery was wrong, or whether women should be able to vote

Klusendorf: that doesn’t mean there is no right answer – the right answer depends on the arguments

Klusendorf: if absence of agreement makes a view false, then it makes HER pro-choice view false as well

Klusendorf: she did make an argument for the unborn child having no rights because of the location

Klusendorf: she needs to explain to us why location matters – what about location confers value

Mara: I’m not going to let Scott frame my debate for me!!!

Mara: women get pregnant and they don’t want their babies! should we put them in jail!!!!

Klusendorf: I didn’t just give my opinion, I had science and philosophy, the issue is “what is the unborn?”

Mara: philosophical and scientific debates are unimportant, I am an expert in real women’s lives

Klusendorf: Which women? Women in the womb or only those outside the womb?

Mara: Only those outside the womb

Klusendorf: Only those outside the womb?

Mara: Women living outside the womb have a right to kill women inside the womb – women have bodily autonomy

Klusendorf: then does a pregnant woman with nausea have a right to take a drug for it that will harm her unborn child?

Mara: Unborn children are only valuable if they are wanted, unborn children only deserve protection if they are wanted

Mara: There are restrictions on abortion – you can’t get an abortion through all nine months in the US

Mara: There is a 24-week limit in the UK as well

Klusendorf: There are no restrictions on abortion that conflict with “a woman’s health” because Supreme Court said

Mara: where are these late term abortion clinics?

Klusendorf: (he names two)

Mara: that’s not enough!!! we need more! where is there one in Pennsylvania?

Klusendorf: well, there used to be Gosnell’s clinic in Pennsylvania, and you could even get an infanticide there….

Brierley: What about Dawkins’ view that it is moral to abort Down’s Syndrome babies?

Klusendorf: he is ignoring the scientific case and philosophical case for the pro-life

Klusendorf: the pro-life view is a true basis for human equality

What I wanted Scott to ask was whether sex-selection abortions were OK with her. Since her reasoning is “if it’s unwanted, it has no rights”, then that would mean sex-selection abortions are just fine. That’s what a UK abortion expert recently argued. And I also posted recently about how sex-selection abortions are not prosecuted in the UK. If you’re looking for a war on women, there it is.

Like this:

Dina sent me this article from the UK Daily Mail. In the past, I’ve written about how much children need their fathers, but this time I’m focusing on how much children need their mothers, especially in the first 5 years of development.

Here is two brain scans to compare:

Brain scans of 3-year old children: normal vs neglected

Excerpt:

Both of these images are brain scans of a two three-year-old children, but the brain on the left is considerably larger, has fewer spots and less dark areas, compared to the one on the right.

According to neurologists this sizeable difference has one primary cause – the way each child was treated by their mothers.

The child with the larger and more fully developed brain was looked after by its mother – she was constantly responsive to her baby, reported The Sunday Telegraph.

But the child with the shrunken brain was the victim of severe neglect and abuse.

According to research reported by the newspaper, the brain on the right worryingly lacks some of the most fundamental areas present in the image on the left.

The consequences of these deficits are pronounced – the child on the left with the larger brain will be more intelligent and more likely to develop the social ability to empathise with others.

But in contrast, the child with the shrunken brain will be more likely to become addicted to drugs and involved in violent crimes, much more likely to be unemployed and to be dependent on state benefits.

The child is also more likely to develop mental and other serious health problems.

Professor Allan Schore, of UCLA, told The Sunday Telegraph that if a baby is not treated properly in the first two years of life, it can have a fundamental impact on development.

He pointed out that the genes for several aspects of brain function, including intelligence, cannot function.

[…]The study correlates with research released earlier this year that found that children who are given love and affection from their mothers early in life are smarter with a better ability to learn.

The study by child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, found school-aged children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress.

The research was the first to show that changes in this critical region of children’s brain anatomy are linked to a mother’s nurturing, Neurosciencenews.com reports.

The research is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.

Lead author Joan L. Luby, MD, professor of child psychiatry, said the study reinforces how important nurturing parents are to a child’s development.

Parents do a lot more than make sure a child has food and shelter, researchers say. They play a critical role in brain development.

More than a decade of research on children raised in institutions shows that “neglect is awful for the brain,” says Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. Without someone who is a reliable source of attention, affection and stimulation, he says, “the wiring of the brain goes awry.” The result can be long-term mental and emotional problems.

The article goes on to talk about children who grow up without mothers in Romanian orphanages:

As the children grew older, the researchers were able to use MRI to study the anatomy of their brains. And once again, the results were troubling. “We found a dramatic reduction in what’s referred to as gray matter and in white matter,” Nelson says. “In other words, their brains were actually physically smaller.”

The scientists realized the cause wasn’t anything as simple as malnutrition. It was a different kind of deprivation — the lack of a parent, or someone who acted like a parent.

A baby “comes into the world expecting someone to take care of them and invest in them,” Nelson says. “And then they form this bond or this relationship with this caregiver.” But for many Romanian orphans, there wasn’t even a person to take them out of the crib.

“Now what happens is that you’re staring at a white ceiling, or no one is talking to you, or no one is soothing you when you get upset,” Nelson says. So areas of the brain involved in vision and language and emotion don’t get wired correctly.

I expect the woman I marry (if I marry) to have a college degree, and preferably a graduate degree, and a couple of years of employment. But I think to be fair to the research on child development, she has to stay home and invest in those children through the first five years at least. After that she can stay home or work as much as she thinks is beneficial to the family goals of impacting the university, the church and the public square – as well as continuing to raise those children. I would take over more of the parenting as the children’s needs changed. When it comes to children, we work backward from their needs, and those needs create responsibilities and obligations on the grown-ups. That doesn’t mean the children are spoiled – it means that they get what they need.

Christian parents have to go even further

Here is a relevant post from Lindsay, a Christian mother who has a graduate degree in biology and was teaching biology before leaving her career to care for her children.

She writes:

Now, can a woman handle the logistics of the home, ensure her family is cared for, and still work outside the home? Perhaps, in some cases – especially if they do not yet have children. But no woman is Superwoman. We all have limitations. It’s just not possible for any woman to adequately care for children and home while holding down a full time job. The care of children and the home is primarily a woman’s responsibility in a way it isn’t for her husband. If there are no children, it may be possible for her to care for the home and her husband and still keep a job outside the home, but she must keep the home and her husband as her priority.

Once children arrive, it becomes pretty much impossible for her to work outside the home and still fulfill her duties at home. The funny thing about children is that they need constant care. One cannot care for children and work outside the home too. The choice once children come along is whether to outsource the care of the children to someone else or to do it yourself. I firmly believe that God entrusts children to a husband and wife because he wants them to be the primary influences in their children’s lives. That doesn’t happen if the children spend a majority of their waking hours in the care of someone else.

Children don’t just need food and shelter provided to them, they need love, teaching, discipline, a sense of security, and examples of how they are to live. All of those things are best done when the child spends time primarily with his or her parents. Daycare workers, school teachers, and even grandparents simply cannot provide them in the same way parents can. No one loves a child like his own parents do. No one has such a vested interest in ensuring that he grows up with the proper spiritual and moral training. Even if others care about the child, the responsibility for the training of a child belongs to his parents. Daycare workers and teachers and grandparents won’t answer to God for the soul of that child. His parents will.

For Christian parents, the stakes are even higher. Not only do they have to care about basic needs of child, but the higher spiritual needs as well. Men really need to be careful to pick a mother for their child who has demonstrated ability in caring for the needs of others, letting the needs of others override her own selfish desires.

The abortion debate reared its head again this summer after controversial tweets by Richard Dawkins made the news.

Justin hosts a discussion between Mara Clarke of the Abortion Support Network and Scott Klusendorf of the Life Training Instititute. Mara believes women need to be decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, but Scott says that all depends on whether we are dealing with a human life in the womb.

Mara: I refuse to debate that – the real question is whether women want their babies or not

Mara: Forced pregnancy is not OK

Brierley: Could your justification for abortion (not wanting to care for a child) work through all 9 months?

Mara: Late term abortions are rare, so I don’t have to answer that question

Mara: Abortion should be OK through all 9 months of pregnancy because women cannot be restricted

Mara: Some women are poor, they need to be able to kill expensive babies at any time

Klusendorf: although she says she won’t debate the unborn, she does take a position

Klusendorf: she assumes the unborn is not human, because she says that insufficient funds is justification for abortion

Klusendorf: no one argues that you can kill a two year old because they cost money, because she thinks they are human

Klusendorf: she is begging the question by assuming the unborn are not human, but that is the issue we must resolve

Klusendorf: I am pro-choice on many other things, e.g. women choosing their own husbands, religion, etc.

Klusendorf: Some choices are wrong – Mara might be right, but she needs to make the case for the unborn not being human

Brierley: What is your reason for thinking that an unborn child is different from a 2-year old?

Mara: An unborn child is not the same as a 2-year old, in my personal opinion

Mara: I am not a debater, so I don’t have to provide reasoning for my assertion, I just feel it

Mara: Not everybody agrees with Scott, they don’t have to have a rational argument, they just need to feel differently

Mara: From my experience, when a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, then she should be able to not be pregnant

Mara: Women shouldn’t be punished with a baby that she doesn’t want, even if she chooses to have recreational sex

Brierley: What do you think of women who think the unborn is human and do it anyway?

Klusendorf: It’s interesting that they never kill their toddlers for those reasons

Klusendorf: I layed out scientific and philosophical reasons for the humanity of the unborn

Klusendorf: Her response was “but some people disagree with you”

Klusendorf: People disagreed about whether slavery was wrong, or whether women should be able to vote

Klusendorf: that doesn’t mean there is no right answer – the right answer depends on the arguments

Klusendorf: if absence of agreement makes a view false, then it makes HER pro-choice view false as well

Klusendorf: she did make an argument for the unborn child having no rights because of the location

Klusendorf: she needs to explain to us why location matters – what about location confers value

Mara: I’m not going to let Scott frame my debate for me!!!

Mara: women get pregnant and they don’t want their babies! should we put them in jail!!!!

Klusendorf: I didn’t just give my opinion, I had science and philosophy, the issue is “what is the unborn?”

Mara: philosophical and scientific debates are unimportant, I am an expert in real women’s lives

Klusendorf: Which women? Women in the womb or only those outside the womb?

Mara: Only those outside the womb

Klusendorf: Only those outside the womb?

Mara: Women living outside the womb have a right to kill women inside the womb – women have bodily autonomy

Klusendorf: then does a pregnant woman with nausea have a right to take a drug for it that will harm her unborn child?

Mara: Unborn children are only valuable if they are wanted, unborn children only deserve protection if they are wanted

Mara: There are restrictions on abortion – you can’t get an abortion through all nine months in the US

Mara: There is a 24-week limit in the UK as well

Klusendorf: There are no restrictions on abortion that conflict with “a woman’s health” because Supreme Court said

Mara: where are these late term abortion clinics?

Klusendorf: (he names two)

Mara: that’s not enough!!! we need more! where is there one in Pennsylvania?

Klusendorf: well, there used to be Gosnell’s clinic in Pennsylvania, and you could even get an infanticide there….

Brierley: What about Dawkins’ view that it is moral to abort Down’s Syndrome babies?

Klusendorf: he is ignoring the scientific case and philosophical case for the pro-life

Klusendorf: the pro-life view is a true basis for human equality

What I wanted Scott to ask was whether sex-selection abortions were OK with her. Since her reasoning is “if it’s unwanted, it has no rights”, then that would mean sex-selection abortions are just fine. That’s what a UK abortion expert recently argued. And I also posted recently about how sex-selection abortions are not prosecuted in the UK. If you’re looking for a war on women, there it is.